Purse search upheld — a good hiding place for men on probation, court says

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If a man is on probation, police can search any areas in a home he shares where he has “joint control or access,” the law says. Like the clothes in his closet, or the medicine in his cabinet. Or, according to a state appeals court, his girlfriend’s purse.

Just because a purse is usually associated with women doesn’t mean a man can’t be suspected of hiding drugs there, the Second District Court of Appeal in Ventura ruled last week in upholding the search of a woman’s handbag in an apartment she shared with a male probationer.

As it turned out, the search produced incriminating evidence — not against the man, but against the woman, who wasn’t on probation and wouldn’t normally have been subject to a warrantless search.

This gender-bending case dates from August 2011, when an Oxnard policeman went to the apartment of Ronald Williams. Williams was on probation and subject to routine searches without a warrant. The door was answered by Williams’ girlfriend, Brandy Ermi, who shared the apartment with Williams and their son. Williams came out as well, and the officer proceeded to the bedroom, where he saw a tan purse on a chair.

Ermi said the purse was hers, but the officer opened it and found a makeup bag that contained a vial of methamphetamine and a smoking pipe, the court said. He found more drugs in the room and arrested Ermi, who, after unsuccessfully challenging the search, pleaded guilty to drug possession and was sentenced to probation herself.

Ermi then took her case to the appeals court, arguing that an officer looking for contraband that her boyfriend might be hiding had no reasonable basis to comb through her purse. But the court said the officer had seen other probationers try to hide things in their roommates’ belongings, and could have reasonably decided that the purse, in a bedroom they shared, was a repository to which Williams had access.

“To rule otherwise would enable a probationer to flout a probation search condition by hiding drugs in a cohabitant’s purse or any other hiding place associated with the opposite gender,” said Justice Kenneth Yegan in the 3-0 ruling. “Persons who live with probationers cannot reasonably expect privacy in those circumstances.”

Ermi’s lawyer, Lyn Woodward, took issue with the court’s view of the modern world of cohabitation and said she’ll probably appeal.

“Even if you live with a probationer, there should be some things that are off-limits, some things that are uniquely personal,” Woodward said.